An online commonplace book
Tolstoy.
Melville.
Dumas.
Kolchalka.
Yes, the classics should be read, must be read. But in-between reading the classics, SpongeBob Squarepants comics have their place.
Especially SpongeBob Comics written and drawn by James Kochalka.
Sidenote. SpongeBob the show first dropped in 1999!
From: SpongeBob Comics: Treasure Chest
By: James Kochalka
Write about losers and loners. Don’t get dragged down that road of trying to resist your natural inclinations.
Seth
Noah Van Sciver has a YouTube channel.
Yeah!
The prolific cartoonist generously shares his works in progress, conversations with colleagues, and on occasion, words of encouragement.
A few days ago he read a letter of storytelling advice from fellow cartoonist, Seth.
Warning!
The letter contradicts most storytelling advice you’ve heard.
Keep drawing y’all.
Handwriting, penmanship, this is all drawing. Hand-lettering can be another artistic tool to add to your kit.
Matthew Frederick shares 6 architectural hand-lettering principals to follow:
1. Honor legibility and consistency above all else.
2. Use guide lines (actual or imagined) to ensure uniformity.
3. Emphasize the beginning and end of all strokes, and overlap them slightly where they meet – just as in drawing lines.
4. Give your horizontal strokes a slight upward tilt. If they slope downward, your letters will look tired.
5. Give curved strokes a balloon-like fullness.
6. Give careful attention to the amount of white space between letters. An E, for example, will need more space when following an I than when coming after an S or T.
Matthew Frederick
This week, for fun, find ways to practice your architectural hand-lettering.
Write a thank-you note.
Write a love letter.
Write a haiku.
Then mail it out it to your lover, mother, or bestie.
Be sure to practice your hand-lettering on the to and from address on the envelope as well.
You’ll get some practice in, and they will receive a special gift.
Source: 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School, Matthew Frederick, pg 22
Aaron Linton? A mystery.
His website is simple. A two page nav – Images and Contact.
No “about me”. No “start here”.
I dig.
No Twitter. No Facebook. Not even instagram.
I dig even more.
Only a collection of stunning images assembled with mixed materials.
His art is like stop motion animation on pause.
Have a look: https://www.aaronlinton.com/
From: Comics: Easy as ABC! The Essential Guide to Comics for Kids
By: Ivan Brunetti
Brian Roppel’s comics are action packed. His panels explode with movement.
Looking at his art brings back the same delight I got watching Nicktoons as a kid.
Based in Toronto, Brian works in multiple mediums – comics, illustration, and animation.
Check out his back catalog here.
From: Comics: Easy as ABC! The Essential Guide to Comics for Kids
By: Ivan Brunetti
Prince of Persia was hard as…<shout favorite swear word here>.
That’s my lasting memory of it.
The protagonist, we’ll call him Prince, felt so heavy during gameplay. I was accustom to games like Super Mario Brothers. Mario and Luigi were light. They had spring when they jumped. They could don a racoon tail to float and fly past foes.
Prince of Persia? Na man. The Prince had weight. The realm had gravity. And as I learned, this was by design.
The game’s creator – Jordan Mechner explains:
What if we combined that gameplay with a charachter who’s so human feeling that you feel like if you miss the jump and you fall, it’s really going to hurt?
Because in the early platform games charachters were kind of weightless. You know, you would jump, and you’d make it or not, but you’d float down to the bottom. It didn’t feel like you could really get hurt.
Jordan Mechner
This War Stories video is a revealing look at the process behind creating a video game.
Toil and grit man.
Toil and grit.
Have a watch:
Bonus Jam: Jordan’s new book, The Making of Prince of Persia: Journals 1985-1993–Illustrated Edition is out now.
Mark Connery‘s Rudy has a long history. Rudy’s been appearing in mini-comics since the early 90s.
Mark’s comics are punk. His distribution is punk. His publisher – 2dcloud is punk.
As this 2014 Comics Journal review by Robert Kirby describes:
Connery, a Torontonian, has been producing his minis and comics himself, distributing them through the mail or anonymously dropping copies at punk shows, libraries, and on public transit, leaving a portion of his readership up to the vagaries of fate. Very punk indeed.
From: Comics: Easy as ABC! The Essential Guide to Comics for Kids
By: Ivan Brunetti
Every drawing you undertake has a hierarchy. There are the general elements. And there are the fine details.
Matthew Frederick recommends laying out the entire drawing to start.
How?
By making use of:
Light guide lines.
Geometric alignments.
Visual gut-checks.
These techniques will help ensure the proportions and placement of shapes are accurate.
After that hit the details. But don’t over indulge in one place:
When you achieve some success at this schematic level, move to the next level of detail. If you find yourself focusing on details in a specific area of the drawing, indulge briefly, then move to other areas of the drawing.
Matthew Frederick
One of the best parts of doing Four Panel Friday each week is discovering new cartoonists.
Today, Erik Nebel steps to the drafting table. He’s currently at work “on a bunch of comics projects”.
What will he conjure up?
From: Comics: Easy as ABC! The Essential Guide to Comics for Kids
By: Ivan Brunetti
It all begins with the line.
Different lines have different purposes. But remember – begin and end your line with emphasis.
Be bold!
Have the lines overlap where they meet.
Be bold!
Don’t “Feather and Fuzz”.
Be bold!
Start and end your line in one stroke. To build confidence, Matthew Frederick suggests drawing a light guide line before drawing the final line.
Floodlights and Goalposts 